Eaton, McFadden qualify for NCAAs

UO junior Ashton Eaton recorded the top decathlon score in the NCAA this season, while Duck senior Kalindra McFadden set a PR in the heptathlon during the combined events portion of the Oregon Relays at Hayward Field on Friday.

Eaton, the reigning NCAA decathlon champion, scored 8.023 points. HIs personal best is 8,122 from the U.S. Olympic Trials last summer.

Eaton’s second-day marks: PR of 14.08 in the 110 hurdles, 125-7 in the discus, 176-2 in the javelin, 14-11 in the pole vault and 4:28.93 in the 1,500.

“People are beginning to realize what we are doing as a team and they are seeing where we are going,” said Eaton, who earned an automatic qualifier to the NCAA championships. “That is because the top athletes here at Oregon are taking the rest of the team with them and everyone is jumping on the success train.”

Oregon junior Marshall Ackely set a PR with 6,933 points for an NCAA provisional qualifying mark.

In the heptathlon, McFadden notched the third-best mark in school history at 5,582 points, easily eclipsing the NCAA automatic standard of 5,500 points.

Her second-day marks: PR of 18-10 3/4 in the long jump, 126-8 in the javelin and 2:15.14 in the 800.

“It’s nice because the things that I have been doing for the past three years are finally clicking,” said McFadden, who stands second in the Pac-10, behind teammate Brianne Theisen’s score of 5,643, and fourth in the NCAA.

UO’s Erin Funkhouser added a PR of 4,858.

Curtis Anderson covered UO track and field for The Register-Guard from 1990-96, and again since 2005. He covered the 2012 Olympic Games in London, in addition to the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in New Orleans (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Hayward Field (2008 and 2012). He is the winner of the Jesse Abramson Award, presented by the Track & Field Writers of America for excellence in coverage in 2008.